Hope or disaster

"Clang! Clang!"

Within the ancient halls, the resounding clash of swords filled the air, echoing through the wide training ground.

A commanding voice, weathered by time, spoke, "That's enough for today. Rest and return in two hours." The old man's words lingered in the vast space.

Lisa, her form marked by the rigors of battle, nodded in acknowledgment. Her breath still labored, body drenched in sweat and dirt, she silently assessed her injuries before leaving the room, wordlessly accepting the directive.

As Lisa departed, the old man's expression revealed satisfaction. A year and a half had passed since Diana's untimely demise, and amidst the sorrow, he marveled at Lisa's metamorphosis into a formidable mage and warrior.

Awakening her mana core at the tender age of five, Lisa had swiftly progressed to a light red mana core in just a year and a half, displaying an affinity for wind and earth—similar to Diana, as if echoing her mother's legacy. More astonishingly, within jusy one and half year of weapon training, she mastered the fundamentals of sword art, a feat that typically required over two years. Her growth was nothing short of terrifying in its swiftness.

'She could have been the strongest mage of her generation, if only...' Contemplating the potential, the old man's gaze shifted to a baby boy cradled in his arms—crimson hair, crystal-red eyes adorned with pitch-black pupils. "If only this boy hadn't been born," the old man completed the sentence, a lament for the divergent paths of destiny.

The old man still couldn't fathom the impossibility of it. The boy who had a mana core even before his birth, which had reached the solid red stage soon after his birth, and he didn't even know how to refine it yet.

He was absorbing mana from his mother during her pregnancy, which ultimately caused her demise. She could have stopped it if she wanted, but then the baby wouldn't have survived and would have succumbed to his own unstable mana core. So she had embraced death to give her son a chance at life.

But it wasn't all in vain after all. He looked at the baby, and a glint of hope appeared in his eye. The flood of memories seemed to drift within his mind.

The city lay in ruins, a haunting panorama of destruction. Skyscrapers, once symbols of prosperity, now stood as skeletal structures against an ominous, smoke-filled sky. Debris scattered the desolate streets, where remnants of shattered windows and crumbled facades bore witness to the relentless force that had torn through the urban landscape.

Silent echoes of a bustling past lingered in the twisted metal and broken concrete. Once luxurious carriages, now charred and abandoned, lined the broken avenues. A heavy layer of ash coated everything, casting a ghostly pallor over the once-vibrant cityscape. While charred and battered bodies lay strewn across the landscape, a heart-wrenching tableau of unimaginable loss. The acrid scent of burnt flesh hung heavily in the air, while the twisted forms of the deceased painted a harrowing picture of the brutality endured.

Thousands of lifeless figures, once vibrant and now reduced to mere remnants, formed a haunting mosaic of tragedy. Limbs contorted in unnatural angles, and faces frozen in expressions of pain and despair told a silent tale of a catastrophic event.

The sheer volume of discarded humanity created a surreal scene, akin to abandoned refuse left to decay. Piles of bodies, like forgotten remnants of a once-thriving community, stretched as far as the eye could see. A cruel testament to the indiscriminate nature of the devastation that had befallen the place.

And amidst the inferno, a lone figure adorned the heavens, standing aloft in the desolate sky. Cloaked in shadows, his face veiled by the shroud of his hood, he surveyed the cataclysm below with an air of detached authority—as if a silent arbiter passing judgment upon the scorched tableau.

This man, a harbinger of the calamity that now lay before him, cast his gaze upon the ashen landscape. His indifference painted a chilling portrait against the backdrop of death that stretched as far as the eye could see.

"Be gone," his voice, deliberate and ominous, echoed like the decree of an ancient deity, shrouding everything beneath the swirling storm of dust once more.

Emerging from the depths of haunting recollections, the old man's gaze returned to the child cradled in his grasp. In a hushed murmur, he conceded, "Perhaps, in the hands of this boy, there lies the possibility."

But at the same time, he got terrified by the very potential of the boy he was holding, terrified of what he can do, of what he can become.

'After all, power corrupts people, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' So it was his responsibility to make sure that the boy doesn't lose his path Or... get rid of him if he does.

He had prepared many things for the future, but he can't train a one-year-old child, so for now, he would give his all to train Lisa. Thinking about the future, his eyes again gave the same resolute glimpse as they had on the day of Diana's death.